


Dreaming of Death

by scifigeek14



Series: Conversations [11]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Post-Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Thorki - Freeform, but they are cuddling again so i'll tag it, once again not directly, thor and loki talk about nightmares and death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-25
Updated: 2018-05-25
Packaged: 2019-05-13 14:27:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14750619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scifigeek14/pseuds/scifigeek14
Summary: Thor's nightmares are keeping Loki up. But he shouldn't complain. After all, it is of Loki's death he is dreaming.





	Dreaming of Death

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FoundlingMother](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FoundlingMother/gifts).



> Prompt from FoundlingMother who wanted them to talk about Loki faking his death.

Loki was yanked out of his sleep by rough hands pawing all over him. His first response was to lash out defensively, thinking that he was being attacked. He scratched at the arms restraining him and kicked his feet towards the thighs that bracketed him. He only got in one hit before he realized who was man-handling him. He recognized the sound of his grunt, and then, immediately after, the feel of his rough hands.

“Thor,” he groaned, opening his eyes reluctantly, “get off.”

Thor didn’t move. He just stared down at him with an unexpectedly intense look and slowly lifted a hand to stroke Loki’s temple at his hairline with trembling fingers. The haunted look on his brother’s face froze Loki’s efforts to fight the touch. He held himself still, allowing Thor’s hand to move to cup his face with his palm and to rub his thumb over the swell of his cheekbone. He waited, letting Thor have his fill of looking, knowing that Thor would speak when he was ready. A few moments later, Thor proved him right.

“I dreamed of your death,” Thor whispered in the dark, his voice rough.

“Which one?” The quip came unbidden to his lips and escaped before he had time to think better of it. He watched Thor’s eyes harden and his fingers pinched tighter at Loki’s jaw until the pressure almost hurt. Loki heaved a big sigh. Carefully dislodging Thor’s grip, Loki shifted until there was enough space between them to reach for the bed sheet and pull it down. “Come here,” He said, gesturing to the open spot under the sheet.

Thor’s shoulders slumped, and he did as Loki requested, getting off of him and sitting next to Loki against the mountain of pillows that Loki had confiscated from other parts of the ship. Loki tugged at Thor’s arm, trying to get him to lay down, but Thor didn’t budge. So, Loki scuttled closer to rest his head in Thor’s lap instead. He moved Thor’s hand to the top of his head and held it there until Thor got the hint and began stroking his hair.

“Mother used to do this when one of us had a nightmare as a kid,” Thor mused. “I’m the one who had a bad dream, so why are you the one being comforted?”

“One, you wouldn’t lay down, and, two, you don’t have any hair anymore.”

“I thought you liked my new hair.”

“You’ve looked worse,” Loki admitted. “Remember when you used to lighten your eyebrows?”

“That was the trend!”

“You just wanted to look more like Fandral because he got more attention from the ladies of the court.” Thor tugged at Loki’s hair in playful retaliation but didn’t argue. “Admit it,” Loki pressed, “You feel better, don’t you?”

Loki waited for Thor to tease him while fighting a reluctant smile. That was what always happened. Thor would fight it but would crack and grin at him. But this time it didn’t come. Loki looked up to find Thor staring into the dark, eyes—eye—focused on where the back wall of his room faded away into the shadows. There was a heavy curtain over the small window in Loki’s room to block the starlight and the only ambient light came from under the door where the low hall-lights buzzed twenty-four-seven. But still, Thor peered into the dark like all the answers in the universe could be found there, like he wanted to hide there and never come back.

But Thor had never been meant for the dark. The dark was where Loki had always felt at home. Thor belonged in the light, and Loki would drag him back out into the sun even if it meant burning himself in the process. Even if it meant talking about things he’d rather not.

“I shouldn’t have brought up my death on Svartalfheim,” Loki apologized, “I’m sorry. I know that it is still a sore patch for us.” Thor didn’t respond, but he didn’t yank at Loki’s hair again either, instead he resumed running his fingers through the long wavy locks: a very good sign. It inspired Loki to forge ahead. “I suppose that we ought to … talk about it?”  

“Talking about things does seem to be our new thing,” Thor offered hesitantly after a moment, his voice sounding weak and decidedly un-Thor like. 

“I think we’re starting to get good at it,” Loki boasted, grinning up at the underside of his brother’s chin. _That_ earned Loki a light tug to his tresses. “I suppose you’ll want to know how I survived? How much of it I faked?”

“No,” Thor denied, his expression not changing. He didn’t look down at Loki. “I don’t care if you planned it from the start or took advantage of the situation when it arose. I want to know why. _Why,_ Loki? Did you want to hurt me that badly? Did you not think that it would hurt me?”

“I hoped it would.”

“You were, what, testing my love for you? You wanted to see how much it would hurt me?” A hint of anger colored his voice, but he still didn’t shift his gaze.

“No,” Loki admitted slowly, “I knew it would hurt you. I wanted to hurt you. I wanted to hurt everyone, like I was hurting. I thought of it as a victory, that it was the best end to a glorious plot of revenge. I’m less sure, now, if I wanted to punish you or to punish myself. Maybe it was both.”

“Did you really hate us that much?” Thor asked.

“Do you blame me?”

“Even mother?”

“Mother…” Loki hummed the word like it felt strange in his mouth. “Mother, who told me she loved me as she lied to my face about who I was, who promised that everything would be alright if only I humbled myself in apology, who longed for things to return to how they were before, with me in the shadow of you and father’s glory. She wanted me to pretend that I was something I wasn’t, just to fulfill her happy fantasy of the ideal family.” Loki paused to sigh deeply. “And the worst part was that I knew she meant it well—Ignorant in her innocence. I hated how she made me want to run to her arms like a crying child and hide from the world.”

“I’m sorry.” It was Thor’s turn to apologize, not on Frigga’s behalf, but on his own, for having not realized the way Loki had been feeling. He looked down at Loki, finally, and it caused Loki to turn his head in response. Loki stared into the dark.

“And you, brother, I hated you, who refused to see that I had changed, that I wasn’t the brother you once knew and loved, and that I hadn’t been for a longer time than even I knew. You always wanted me to be something that I wasn’t or couldn’t be anymore.”

“I don’t want that now. You know that, right?” Thor asked, using his free hand to tip Loki’s chin up, turning his head back until their line-of-sight met up in the hazy dark. “I want you to be you—whoever you want to be—but whoever that is, is still my brother.”

“I know, Thor,” Loki promised, enduring the indulgent sentimental assurances his brother was feeding him. “I forgave mother the day she died. I forgave you the day that I did.”

“And father?”

“Father I hated most of all.” This admission came easily to Loki. His dislike of Odin was no secret. “I hated him for lying and calling me son. I hated him for taking me from Jotunheim in the first place, for giving me the life he did just so that I could have the foundation of it ripped from under my feet when I learned the truth. I hated him for not trying to go after me when I let go and for locking me away like a shameful secret when I returned.”

“So, you locked him away in return.” Loki nodded, his eyes feeling full. He blinked against the burning tears threatening to fall. He refused to let them. “Did it help?” Thor asked, his hands still stroking gently.

“No. I still hate him. I hate that the last thing he did was call me his son and tell me he was proud of me.” Loki swiped at his eye as a traitorous tear slipped from the creases at the corner.

“Our father was many things in one person. I think it’s okay to feel more than one way about him, even if they are two things so contradictory as love and hate,” Thor said. He started rubbing circles over Loki’s temple with his thumb. “I wish you’d stop hating yourself, though. It upsets me to know that someone feels that way about someone I happen to hold in such high regard, even if the someone who dislikes him is he himself.”

“At the risk of you lording my sentimentality over me, I think it’s getting better.”

“Good.”

Loki rested his head a few moments more, enjoying the soothing ministrations and allowing himself to pretend that he was a child again, that he was back on Asgard in Frigga’s lap and not hurtling through space on a ship full of refugees toward a planet full of people who hated him. And, then, he took a deep breath and sat up, shifting so that he was leaning up against the headboard, his should brushing Thor’s as he sat by his side.

“You said tonight you dreamed of my death,” Loki inquired, solemnly. “Tell me, Thor, do you ever dream of your own?”

“Not since I was a young boy,” Thor told him, trying angle his body to face Loki. “I dream of others. I would dream it of mother and father before their passing, and now, still after, those dreams still come. I dream of the destruction of Asgard, which came to pass, and that of Earth, which I hope never shall. I used to dream of the way I held you as you died… and now I dream of losing you again. Those are the things I fear, not my own passing. Why?” Thor asked, “Do you dream of your death, Loki?”

“I used to often, but not as a nightmare, as a relief. I felt it must be an escape.”

“Loki!” Thor exclaimed, sound like he trying to censor Loki’s thoughts, as though a strong word would absolve the past.

“I could never go through with it. I told myself that it was my rage and my desire to see revenge that stayed my hand, that others had to pay before I could move on,” Loki mused, “But, by the time my rage had cooled, and I found myself on an empty throne, I knew that no revenge would satisfy. And, yet, still I could not end it. Because the truth may be that I’m the biggest coward of our family. Volstagg was right about that. I blamed everyone for lying to me, as I lied most to myself.”

“Promise me you’ll never do that,” Thor implored, his hand found Loki’s own and he gripped it so tightly that his knuckles turned white with the effort. “Promise me you’ll never take you life by your own hand. We’re to die in glorious battle side-by-side, remember?”

“I remember.” Loki assured him with a smile.

“Promise,” Thor insisted. Loki turned to look at him.

“I promise to die at your side. Probably trying to save your stupid ass.”

“Good.” Thor’s smile bloomed in the dark.

“And you’re really so sure you want such a thorn in your side permanently, Earth’s Mighty Avenger?” Loki’s grin betrayed him as he asked the question.

“You are rather prickly,” Thor teased him lightheartedly. “But, you are a rose I’d gladly pick.”

“Oh Norns!” Loki choked out over an exaggerated gagging gesture, ripping his hand away from Thor’s grip. “Does that line work with the ladies?”

“You know, now that I think of it,” Thor admitted sheepishly, “I think I once head Volstagg use a similar line on Sif.”

“And she _didn’t_ kill him where he stood?” Loki asked, incredulous.

“Would you believe it, she blushed!”

“Sif? Blushing?” Loki cackled. “Now that is a sight I’d like to have seen.” Thor joined him in laughter but was interrupted by a yawn. Loki sobered. “You’re working yourself ragged,” He scolded. “That’s why you’re having nightmares.”

“A King’s work is never done, Loki.”

“Perhaps, but it is put on hold—for at least the next few hours,” Loki said, sliding down into a reclining position, “by order of the Prince.”

“Is that so?” Thor’s eyes crinkled in amusement.

“It is so. So, get down here and shut up.” Loki closed his eyes, but he could feel Thor shuffle down next to him, his weight settling heavy on the mattress and dipping it. Loki was pulled to the center of the bed like a meteor caught in a gravitational field. “Now get some rest. And if you’re worried about having more nightmares, just think about Sif blushing at Volstagg. I know I’m sure to have sweet dreams dreaming of that!”

Thor pressed his face to Loki’s back and laughed himself to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Still taking prompts for this fic and still looking for Beta Readers for my chapter fic about Loki rediscovering his Jotun heritage. 
> 
> For this series, I'm circling how to handle the prompt of Thor seeing Loki in his Jotun form and also going through a magic training session from a prompt.


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